


Across a Distant Shore

by LeantheBean



Series: Critical Role Fics [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Family Relationships - Freeform, Growing Up, Heroes, Introspection, Parchwood, Vesper de Rolo growing up and being awesome, When you retire other people take your job, Whitestone, coming of age., enchanted forests, kids grow up, learning how to let your kid adventure, love and marrige, the feywild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-20 14:07:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12434433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeantheBean/pseuds/LeantheBean
Summary: "A doorway had called her. The Astral Sea had called her, and there was not a chance in hell that Vesper was going to be anything but Vex’s daughter in her need to fight for this. "Vesper de Rolo II knows exactly what she wants to do: be a hero, kick ass, travel the planes of existence, and maybe bring back her Uncle Vax. Now for the small matter of figuring out how to do that...





	Across a Distant Shore

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write something about vex's daughter being the new horizon walker class of ranger from unearthed arcana. Then this happened. I hope you guys enjoy.

Vesper De Rolo the Second’s mother is a hero. When she is old enough to run freely around the manor but young enough to still slip out windows and up walls with ease, Vesper would sit on the roof of the De Rollo home and watch her mother leave for the Parchwood Forest. In the early mornings when the sun would peak over the eastern trees, Vesper’s mother walked out the manor doors with Vesper's father at her side and Trinket following behind. Her mother glowed in these moments. Her armor was a brilliant white that reflected the sun as she stood on the front lawn with Fenthras held loose in her left hand. Percy kissed Vex, who then would mount her beloved, lightly armored, bear and ride into the Parchwood. Her father would watch as the two of them dissapeared into the forest and only once they were out of view return inside to begin the day. 

(Vex loves the Parchwood. When she is lost in the trees she feels as though time has no grip on her, she feels unmoored. While she rides Trinket, moving from tree to tree, she can exist only as Vex. All at once, Vax is waiting in the city for her, Scanlan has the mansion up for the night, Percy will give her a kiss when she comes home, Vesper and perhaps one day more are waiting for their mother to come home and tell them about her day. In the Parchwood reality is supended, and Vex is free. )

Vesper De Rolo the Second also knows that her father is a hero, but it is always much harder for her to picture. Her father can often be found in smudged and messy linen shirts and breeches in his workshop, experimenting with his clocks. He made fireworks for Vesper and her brothers and sisters, and beautiful wind up toys. He is an artist. Vesper remembers the sky at Winter's Crest, full of stars and erupting in explosions of purple, blue, and gold, showering light over the city. Her father had grinned at them, as Vesper and her younger brothers gasped at the sky above. 

It is hard for Vesper to picture her father as a Hero because her father seems to be the opposite of everything Vesper had ever heard a Hero described as. There is no bloodlust in him. Her father, who watched his beloved wife ride out into the dangerous enchanted woods that surrounded the city, did not seem to be someone who had the soul of confrontation in him. When Wode and Wade started rolling on the floor, scratching and clawing at each other, it was Vex who got in the middle, who grabbed collars and shook. Percy just looked on with a smile and a twist of the lips, as though he was remembering something funny and a little bit sad. 

Once Vesper asked Vex about it, wondering what exactly her sweet, gentle father did for the fierce adventuring group that her aunts and uncles comprised. Her mother laughed, but there was something bitter and a little broken to it. Sobering she wrapped her arms around Vesper. “Once upon a time my dear, there was not a more fearsome or bloodthirsty man than your father in all the world. The only problem was that he was fierce because he thought he had lost everything, and bloodthirsty because he was not entirely sure that he hadn’t died with his family. Slowly, bit-by-bit, as he adventured with us, he woke up. In the end after we defeated Vecna and lost your Uncle Vax, Percy just didn’t have it in him to kill anymore. The fact that you can’t see how he ever could is the greatest gift he could wish for my little sprite.” 

(For Percy things aren’t really real all the time. Sometimes as he travels with Vox Machina, a darkness tinges his thoughts; all of a sudden Percy remembers-realizes-fears that none of it is real. In some ways it frees him. There is no reason to be afraid of hurting people; there is no need to be careful with others if nothing is real. He was dying in a cell, and a bunch of fantastical beatuiful people came and saved him. There’s no way that it was real. And so he can shoot, and kill, and fight for his revenge, because it does not matter who he hurts. It’s Vex who breaks through that piece-by-piece. Who forces him to not give into the full capabilities of his vengeance, who teaches him to forgive. That said it isn’t until she dies because of him that he really thinks there might be something to this whole reality thing. He commits to believing; he tries to be better. But sometimes, when he’s hungry, it still feels as though he is standing on the edge of the world about to fall off, about to realize that everything around him is just his fevered starvation. Then one day Vex puts a tiny squalling quarter-elf in his arms. That is the moment when Percy is certain; his mind could never have made up this tiny perfect thing on its own. And the world is real again.)

Vesper doesn’t fully understand, not really, but she thinks that it’s alright all the same. She’s nearly certain that she is the only one of her siblings who ever questioned it. The others didn’t exist when her mother and father were still prone to bouts of deep darkness and mourning. Those tapered off just before the first set of twins came along. Until she was five it was only Vesper who haunted the halls of the mansion, and saw the strange cycle of jubilation and despair that affected her parents. She was first and singular in all ways. Though her memories had taken on a dreamlike quality, the strange emotions of the early years still rise to the surface of her mind from time to time. It was only her who would sneak onto the roof and watch mother ride to defend and tend an enchanted forest with all the glory of the sun. It is only Vesper who remembers the three weeks both of her parents spent away, while Vesper was left alone with Aunt Cassandra in the castle. Everything changed after those three weeks. Her parents told her that they had to go on a little adventure, and that she would be a good girl while they were away right? Vesper had nodded. 

(They had been stuck in Whitestone since losing Vax—except for that whole Pandemonium trip that none of them liked to focus on. Of course they had Vesper, who had been a beautiful gift with her mother's hair and eyes, but between the new baby, and making Whitestone livable, there was no real time to get away. So they had handed Vesper to Cassandra with an apology and taken to the road. Three days into their travel, Vex walked off of the path and into the trees while Percy chased her. She stopped when she reached a clearing. Then she loosed two arrows in quick succession where they thunked into the bark of a tree. Then Vex screamed. Her fury couldn’t be pushed down any longer. She was furious with the Raven Queen for taking Vax, with Vax for choosing to go, with herself for not trying to take his place, for her beautiful little daughter who would never know him. Percy held her when she stopped screaming, when she cried.Then they had gone looking for some Bandits for Vex to kill—Percy went more for the legs nowadays—and some treasure to hunt.)

The two of them had come back bloody at noon looking as though they had been rid of the weight of the world. Vesper was the first one they hugged, there were no other little ones waiting eagerly beside. Her father had been dressed a little differently, no longer in light linens; he was instead wrapped in the folds of a thick blue coat and deep midnight cloak with a shining sword hanging at his hip. As he wrapped his arms around her and held her tight Vesper could understand why people had wide eyes when they passed him in the street. In that moment he seemed every inch the Hero her sunlit mother was. 

Then came Wode and Wade, the boys. Vesper loves those two little things with all her heart. They looked almost indistinguishable those two. Their hair was the color of ash wood, as though the dark brown of their mother had been blended and absorbed into the white of their father. Their eyes were the same honey brown as Vesper and their mother. When they stood next to Vesper it was a study in comparisons. Vesper’s hair was dark brown, the same near black as her mother with the same tanned skin and plush lips, but she had her father’s rounded more human bone structure. The twins had the lighter coloring of Percy, but all the angularity of Vex. They were pointy in the elven way, and though their ears had the same slanted angle as Vesper’s, they seemed far more elven, as though there was something fundamentally fey in their construction.

(Like with Vesper before them, Pike was there in the delivery room, with Grog Keyleth and Scanlan waiting outside with Percy and this time around, Vesper. Wode and Wade were born tangled up in each other. Pike had to fix their orientation while Vex screamed and pushed. When she saw those two little things, Vex couldn’t help but think about her and Vax, for a moment her heart hurt fiercely, but a moment later it burned with an even stronger love. These beautiful boys would be there for each other if Vex had anything to say about it. They would also have it made abundantly clear to them that they were not to go making deals with deities. Vex would put a blanket ban on serving them, but with her current affiliations, she couldn’t help but feel that a little hypocritical. “I’m going to let them in.” Pike said. And then things got a little loud.)

The twins were wild, though each in their own insane way. Everything around them was a target for mischief and amusement, even each other. The two of them spent as much time tripping over each other in a race to get to the same place as they did pushing each other over. They also adored being outside. When they were babies Vesper would take them to the grounds outside the manor and let them play in the grass, while she eyed the Parchwood beyond and the rangers her mother trained who walked it with a quiet intensity. 

Wode had a knack for plants. He took over a small patch behind the manor where he grew tomatoes and flowers and sweet smelling herbs. Wade on the other hand had no interest in green things. He liked running, and shouting, and shiny swords. By the time that they were five and Vesper ten, Wade was shadowing the captain of the Guard and learning all about sharp things, especially when it was allowed for him to use them. 

Of course by then there were the girls. When Wode and Wade were two, Vex and Percy gave Vesper more siblings. Whitney and Jules had snow-white tangles of hair and big black eyes. Vesper couldn’t help but be a little more distant from the girls. They were very little and Vesper spent much more time with Wode and Wade than with them. When Vesper was ten Whitney and Jules were three, and that gap was a lot to overcome; Vesper would rather roll in the dirt with Wode or school Wade in how to brawl than to look after the two squalling little rug rats. It didn’t stop the two little girls from following Vesper on their unstable legs and looking up at her with big adoring eyes. Vesper might have played more with her little brothers, but her sisters’ adoration made something in the pit of her stomach warm.

In the end it was their father who did the most looking after. He wore his linen shirts and soft breeches as he herded them, and taught them, and occasionally pawned them off on other people while he went to go work on the clock tower or some aspect of governance. Sometimes mother helped too, but more often than not she would be in the Parchwood, keeping the enchanted forest under control. Every morning she would walk out into the emerald and green trees, protecting and caring for those woods and its inhabitants, even as she defended the city at her back. She trained young people from every part of Whitestone who she thought had potential in how to walk the forest, how to tend it, prune it and give room to grow. Vex was more than just any old adventurer, Vex was to Vesper the epitome of what a Hero should be, the Knight of Whitestone. 

Vesper couldn’t help that her mother was her favorite, and as she grew up her aunts and uncles fueled her adoration with stories about Vex in particular. Her Uncle Scanlan told the best stories when he came to Whitestone with Grog and Pike. When she was little he told her stories where Vex was the most heroic of them all. He painted the picture of Pelor’s halls with his words and made Vesper gasp with the suspense as he detailed Vex transforming into a great red dragon and racing both time and Palnetars to beat Pelor’s door and make it to the top. Uncle Scanlan also waltzed her around the dining hall, much to Vesper’s delight, as, at seven, she and Uncle Scanlan were the same height. 

(Vesper was the first child of Vox Machina that ever came to be. When she was born all of Vox Machina stood in the hallway outside the room, while Pike helped Vex. Every time she screamed Percy twitched, and Grog’s shoulders climbed higher. As a unit they were not used to doing nothing while one of their own was screaming. Then all of a sudden there was no more Vex screaming, there was a baby crying, and Pike was asking them to come in. When it was Scanlan’s turn to hold the little thing, he felt like his heart was melting a little. She had a little tuft of black hair that he stroked with a finger. As Vesper grew she was joined with little brothers and sisters, but there would always be a soft spot in Scanlan’s heart for this girl, the first of the children. As he hands her back to Vex he says, “If she ever asks me to kill something for her Vex, I will.” And he meant it.)

Aunt Pike and Uncle Grog were favorites of Wade who was delighted by the opportunity to roughhouse both people bigger than him, and people who were his own size. Wode would grab Auntie Keyleth as soon as she came in the door and they would begin a lively conversation about plants, while Vesper and Scanlan chatted and danced and laughed. The baby twins enjoyed being passed around, not quite old enough to have a favorite yet, although they were particularly taken with Aunt Zarha’s hair, which was the same shade as theirs. The baby twins were also around the same age as Uncle Scanlan and Auntie Pike’s young daughter Pux. She was smaller even than the two of them despite being slightly older, and was a squirrely explorer, often wriggling away from whoever was holding her and crawling around under the table. The only people who she would sit still for were Vesper and her Uncle Grog. 

On the rare occasions when she sat with Vesper, she seemed intensely fond of wrapping her tiny fingers in Vesper’s hair and yanking, which more often than not get her pawned off onto Grog. Grog loved no one in the world more than he loved that tiny gnome and it was clearly mutual. Pux fit entirely in one of Grog’s hands, and he had perfected the art of cupping her in the crook of her arm so she could play with the stone gauntlets that he wore everywhere. Once he had her, the likelihood that Pux would leave Grog’s grip was unlikely. Most nights she would fall asleep tucked in Grog’s arms. Vesper sometimes felt a little jealous when she saw that. Grog was a mountain of solidity, and before Pux had come along, he had often wrapped an arm around Vesper, letting her drift away, totally safe leaned against him. Sometimes she missed it. Still, there were other things gained for being older.

(When Wode and Wade were born Vesper sat in the hall with Vox Machina. Percy tried to take her to bed but, in a move that Grog quite liked, she twisted and sunk her teeth into his arm when he tried to pick her up. That was funny, but Percy looked like he was about to start his demonic smoking and Vesper had a look on her face that Grog remembered from Vax at his most stubborn; Grog knew something had to be done. “C’mon Percy, let her stay. She can sit with me.” Both of them looked at Grog, before Percy threw up his hands and went back to pacing back and forth. Vesper came over to sit with Grog. He tucked the tiny girl under one of his arms. “Don’t worry about your mom. I know she’s being real noisy right now, but she’ll be fine. Vex's tough.” Vesper looked up at him and gave him a grin with a gap where she had lost a tooth in what Percy had described as a children’s brawl. Fierce little thing. “I know Uncle Grog, mom is a Hero, she’s the toughest.” When Pux came along Grog’s heart exploded and he decided that he was going to take care of that little thing until the day he died. Pux was probably the most he’d ever loved anything except for his best buddy Pike, and maybe even more than that. That being said, when Vesper grinned up at him as Vex screamed a room over, he pulled her in tighter and knew that he had given another piece of his heart away, and that even beyond Vox Machina there were people that he would die for. )

Vesper enjoyed her time with Uncle Scanlan the best because he made the adventures and heroics of him and her parents seem so attainable. When he told the stories it seemed as though they had just stumbled into it; as though they had just walked out into the world one day and found wild adventure. Vesper always wanted to know more however, and there was a limit to what any of the adults would tell the children about their adventuring days. Even so, at ten Vesper was a quiet child and her stealthy nature meant that she could tuck behind a servant and dart into the hall as the children were put to bed and regain her place in the corner behind the clock once the adults were a little drunk and not much paying attention.

It was in these stealthy moments that Vesper learned the most about her Uncle Vax. She’d always known that he existed, but she hadn’t really known all that much about him as a person, mostly because the entire family made an effort not to mention him in front of Vex if she hadn’t mentioned him first. It was always a risk talking about Uncle Vax with her mother. Sometimes bringing him up would seem like Vex had invoked Pelor’s blessing, she would glow. On these good days her mother’s face would open up with a strange fondness, and she would willingly offer up information about their Uncle Vax, telling them about his love of mischief or the way he smiled when he found a perfectly balanced knife. These moments were extremely rare though. 

More often then not her mother would close off like a shutter behind her eyes had slammed shut. She would say something pithy, maybe even funny, and then disengage from the conversation entirely. When she was seven, Vesper had asked Percy why Vex never wanted to talk about Vax. He’d pulled up a chair, “It’s hard to explain Vesper, Vex wants you to know about Vax, you need to know that. It’s not in any way about you, it’s just, have you ever heard of soul mates?” Percy looked at her and Vesper gave an affirmative nod, “Vex and Vax were platonic soul mates, they completed each other in almost all ways. For a very long time they only had each other, and that meant that everything about their lives was built around having another person at their side. It was fundamental to who they were. So when Vax died, it hurt your mother deeply, and in a way that’s not really describable, except to say that she when she lost Vax she lost part of her soul. She’s still happy, and she’s still fundamentally Vex, but she doesn’t like talking about him with people who didn’t know him because all she has left of him are those memories, and, well, she’s always had hoarder tendencies. Sharing her memories with people who didn’t experience what we did is like carving out little bits of her soul and giving them away. Some days she’s up for it, but more often than not she’ll leave it up to me.” 

Percy had smiled then. “Your Uncle Vax would have adored you, and even though he’s with the Raven Queen in the Astral Sea he probably still does.” Then he had gotten up and walked her down to the dinner hall. Vesper had noticed that even though her father had claimed responsibility for telling them about Vax, his mouth would pinch ever so slightly whenever he actually had to. After that Vesper avoided asking about her Uncle Vax altogether. She did remember however, her father’s comment about the Astral Sea. Sometimes when she dreamed, her mind took her to a plane of silvery tides and shadows that walked through them, only visible by the single shimmering cord that stretched far away into the distance. She dreamed of the ocean beyond the Divine Gate, and gleaming shores of Godly Islands, distant and far away. 

Learning about Uncle Vax from listening to Vox Machina talk among themselves was a revelatory experience for Vesper, as he became something more than just the sparse details she had gleaned from her mother and father. When they talked, Vax was a hero in all ways, emotional, kind, and tricky. He was stealthy like Vesper, he was a fighter like Wade, he liked plants like Wode, and he adored his sister like Whitney and Jules. As Vesper listened to her family laugh and cry she couldn’t help but miss someone who she had never met. In that moment, at ten years old, sitting hidden in the corner of the hall Vesper decided, she was going to find her Uncle Vax and bring him back. If her father was right he was somewhere in the Astral Seal, all she needed to do was get there. Vesper didn’t notice that alone among Vox Machina her Aunt Keyleth had set a pair of sharp eyes on her. She missed the way they assessed her and moved on. Vesper fell asleep in the corner that night listening to her family reminisce about days spent fighting monsters and slogging through swamps. Asleep, she missed Uncle Grog lifting her with strong hands and taking her to bed. That night she dreamed of enchanted forests with strange doorways to other planes, endless silver seas, and sliver cords that dissolved in a flurry of feathers. 

(They realized Vesper was in the corner at around two in the morning when Percy and Vex decided to go to bed. “Oh shit.” Vex said, upon seeing her daughter curled up in the corner. Then she burst into giggles that sounded like sobs. Percy was almost entirely holding up Vex and it was abundantly clear that he didn’t have a free hand or the balance to scoop up his ten-year-old daughter. “Oh dear, can someone…” Percy said, looking around. “Don’t worry Percy, I got her,” said Grog. He scooped up the little girl in the corner. The first of Vox Machina’s children felt light in his arms. Off to the side Scanlan and Pike were grinning at him. Grog felt his ears going red, “S’no big deal. She’s not heavy.”)

That morning Vesper knew where she needed to start, the Parchwood.

Vex had always been very clear with all of her children that they were not to go into the Parchwood without her or at least with two other members of Vox Machina in full armor. This firm policy led to Vex refusing to go into the Parchwood with them and as a consequence, no other members of Vox Machina available and the children avoiding the Parchwood. The closest they got was when Vex would tell stories about the beauty and the dangers of it. She would warn them that there was a portal to the Feywild there, and that the forest had many beauties as a result but also many traps and many dangers. Vesper heard stories from the guards and townsfolk about glowing moss and flowers that would lead you into Farie rings. She heard talk about lost time at dances, joyous balls that took up an evening to the dancer but as you stumbled out years had passed. She heard tales of a huge grey wolf that had loved a raven man but now ran bereft of both his champion and mistress, protecting the Parchwood and waiting for another who would walk at his side and take him where he needed to go. She heard fables about a forest spirit with hair the color of autumn leaves who would smile at you with a grin full of teeth and acted as a pure force of chaos, bringing gifts and ruin in equal measure. She never told her mother about these stories because Vex would turn them into lessons, into parables with one teaching, stay out of the woods. 

At ten Vesper realized that no longer was she going to stay out of the woods. As Vox Machina prepared to leave through trees and teleport spells, Aunt Keyleth pulled Vesper aside. Her face was solemn and her eyes were canny as they scanned Vesper’s face, “Be careful Vesper. I know you want to be a hero like us, and we’ve fed that a little bit, playing it up with stories and being our generally cool selves, but you need to know that being a hero, more often than not ends up with dead people and all powerful gods stealing your boyfriend. This weird adventuring family has kids and fun times, but honestly none of us want you to do what we did. Adventurers usually have a boatload of issues and by the time they retire they have even more. Just be careful Vesper. I want you to be happy and healthy and not getting lit on fire every couple of days.” The words rang in Vesper’s head, but she also had no desire to truly listen. If getting lit on fire a little meant getting Uncle Vax back Vesper was more than willing to do it. Her mother is a hero and Vesper will be one too. 

(Keyleth loves Vesper, but she sometimes finds it a little difficult to be around her. Vesper reminds her of Vax in such a tangible way that it's hard for Keyleth to talk to her. But when she sees Vesper glow while listening to the tales of Vox Machina, Keyleth can’t help but think that this is dangerous. Something protective of her best friend’s child stirs in her chest. Vesper venerates them, but she only has things to lose from adventuring, she has so much less to gain. Keyleth watches her niece glow with purpose, and can’t help but hate her a little. Vax had glowed with that same purpose, as though the universe was moving him to where he needed to go. Keyleth looks at her niece and knows that just like Vax, Vesper will sacrifice herself for that purpose; she also knows that Vesper will break her parent’s hearts if she does not succeed. She is hurting Keyleth’s heart as it is.)

The problem with finding her way into the Parchwood lay in the fact that most of her time was supervised. Whether it was lessons with tutors in the main castle, or time spent with the twinses and Percy, most of Vesper’s activities were monitored. The answer lay in turning thirteen, the age of independence, and the Citadel librarian JB. JB was Aunt Pike’s cousin, but never quite ascended to being claimed as a member of the rather large extended family that Vesper could track. JB was quiet and a bit judgmental. She visited Pike quite a bit, but had never really wanted to part with her role managing Whitestone’s libraries, which she held as a near sacred duty. (Three years after Vecna, during JB's monthly Pike visits, Scanlan and JB are left alone in the kitchen while Grog and Pike go off to do something or other. It's quiet and a bit awkward until Scanlan turns to her and says, "Hey, have you ever heard of Ioun, she's basically the Goddess of Libraries." Things go from there.) JB also didn’t talk to Vesper’s parents very much. So when Vesper said that she wanted to work for JB, her parents were thrilled if a little puzzled. In their minds this was an odd fit for their quiet child who’d been prone to wandering down into the city and running wild every time she possibly could. Still Vesper had always loved books, so maybe this wasn’t to much of a leap. Vesper told her parents that she would work for a few hours in the library, and then go down to the town. It was easy to slip out after those morning hours and head down toward the Parchwood, because JB certainly wasn’t checking where she was going, and her family wasn’t expecting her for hours. After she left the library Vesper moved like a shadow across the grounds towards the Parchwood. 

It felt like breathing for the first time as Vesper ran through the woods. The air smelled like damp earth, and the light that filtered through the trees seemed to set everything aglow. She moved with the shadows, trying to leave as little a mark as possible in the earth. She hiked up her dress and petticoats, tucking them up under her corset and tying them in place with her dark leather belt. It left her boots and bloomers exposed but meant that she could move through the forest with much less impediment, and with a much slimmer chance of being found out. And so Vesper learned. 

She began to dress differently, wearing the more utilitarian riding clothes that let her move through the woods quickly and with less of a trail, as well as braiding her hair tightly down her back. She favored thick fur lined breeches and linen shirts in grey or black with embroidered cuffs that she tucked into a wide belt with a knife hanging from it. When she was in the city she took to wearing a dark blue dyed wool coat with yellow daffodils and twisting vines stitched on the sleeves that was nice enough not to seem strange, but utilitarian enough for her to wear in the Parchwood. It also obscured the knife that she had taken to wearing in her belt. 

This strange new status quo lasted a year. In retrospect it was shocking that this had gone on for as long as it had. As exploring the Parchwood began to take up more, and more time, Vesper began to withdraw from her family. She only saw them at mealtimes, and often didn’t spend more than the requisite amount of time with them, instead opting to run up to her room and make notes abut her day. Wode and Wade, as well as Whitney and Jules had become unwitting accomplices of hers as they began to demand more attention and energy from Vex and Percy. Always the quiet, serious one, it was easy for Vesper to slip away as the younger ones needed attention. Still her parents noticed the change. It came to a head when Vex followed Vesper one snowy day. 

Vesper, despite having become much more perceptive in the year that she had spent exploring the forest, was still not even close to being able to see Vex when she didn’t want to be seen. This made turning around to see her mother standing with crossed arms and a displeased expression as she leaned on a tree quite a shock.

“Just what do you think that you are doing?” Vesper couldn’t help but stand in place frozen. In the small corners of her heart she had known that her freedom couldn’t last, but to know that it was ending in this moment was something that she still was not ready to face. “Because,” Vex’ahlia continued, moving forward fluidly like a panther closing in on its prey, “I could have sworn that I had set some strict rules about my children going into the Parchwood that is currently home to an extremely chaotic Arch-Fey and other strange creatures without me.” The end of her sentence left her standing in front of Vesper in her white armor. There was something fierce in her expression that Vesper recognized. This was her mother’s Hero face. It was the angular fury and determination of someone who had faced down beholders and krakens, who had called a Litch-King a dipshit, and who had outraced Pelor’s angels to the precipice of a glass tower and flung herself with no reservations into the sun. This was Vex at her Vex-est, and there was no doubting the power of it.

The only flaw in Vex’s thinking as she made that face, was that she didn’t understand Vesper’s need. To Vex it was Wode and Wade that were wild, it was Whitney and Jules that were determined. She wasn’t used to any opposition from Vesper because Vesper had spent so long acquiescing to every request, spoken aloud or silent. Vex was used to Vesper looking up at her, at Vesper doing what Vex wanted because it was Vex that asked, Vex who Vesper clearly and obviously loved best of all. The problem was that Vesper loved Vex most of all, but the Parchwood had called her. A doorway had called her. The Astral Sea had called her, and there was not a chance in hell that Vesper was going to be anything but Vex’s daughter in her need to fight for this. 

“You never let me come with you into the woods, you only took me into the outskirts or into the training clearing for the other Grey Hunt Rangers. You were never going to let me explore, and I had to. I had to. The Parchwood was calling me, it’s always been calling me, and you wouldn’t have let me answer. I don’t want you to get mad mother, but if you ground me, I will escape and run back to these woods. If you lock me up I will find my way out and back here.” There was a wobble in her voice toward the end of that statement.

Vex’s gaze was heavy on her, considering as snowflakes began to drift down around them. Vesper lifted her chin refusing to show her inner turmoil. It still showed in the bright wetness of her eyes. Vex’s eyes were clear as she looked at Vesper. Nothing betrayed her mind as she began to speak. “I liked the melodrama. It’s a nice touch and shows your true feelings about my parenting. My darling little sprite, you haven’t asked me to take you into the Parchwood since you were seven. Where I was willing to take you then is not where I am willing to take you now.” Vesper didn’t dare breathe as hope filled her chest. Vex’s eyes ran over her, taking in her coat and boots and knife. “You don’t know what you are doing, you have no magical weapons to speak of, and no armor of any kind. You made it this long in here on natural talent at staying hidden and the fact that the forest loves you. Staying hidden will not always work, especially not how you do it. You’ve spent a year exploring the Parchwood and you haven’t found any gates or fey or anything interesting at all because the things in this wood that love me, that I protect, have been keeping you safe. If you come with me I will show you what lives in this wood, I will teach you about being a ranger, but it will no longer be safe.” 

Vesper felt like the world was afire. “I will do it, I will do anything, I want to be a part of this forest, I want to protect and care for it. Please let me walk it with you and learn from you.” Finally Vex’s blank mask of intensity cracked. Her lips twisting upward, her eyes began to mist. “Sprite, you may not believe this, but I have been waiting a quite while for you to say that to me.” 

With two steps forward Vex wrapped Vesper in her arms. “Percy and I never wanted you little ones to feel lost darling. Most adventurers do, you see. They feel lost, so they wander, and because they wander unmoored, they fight. For all that Percy and I have a home, a permanent home here, we can’t help our impulse to wander because we have spent so much time lost that we can’t live with that need to run away from time to time. We never wanted you to feel that you do not have a mooring, a place of your own. But if you’re being called to the Parchwood, called to adventure, who am I to deny that calling.” Vesper, wrapped in the safety of her mother’s arms began to cry. “I do feel moored; I never felt unmoored. I always know that I have a place to come back to mother and I never meant to disparage your parenting. I lied and snuck out because I knew you loved me and I thought that you would stop me, please believe me.”

Vex smiled into her daughter’s hair, “I do little Sprite, I do. And now I’m going to train you, so that even when you wander, you have a way to get back home.”

(Vesper frightened Vex. She looked like Vax, she moved like Vax, she burned in the same way that Vax used to. There was no stopping Vesper if she wanted something. There was also very little that she actually did want. It was hard to tell what Vesper was thinking, but it was easy to see when she changed. Her sneaking into the Parchwood, not ideal, but at least this was something that Vex knew. At least this was something that Vex could teach. She would teach her baby girl, and she would make sure that her darling sprite would come home when everything was said and done. Her daughter would not be like Vax, her daughter would live. 

Later that night she orders a sending to be sent to Keyleth, who then tree strides to Whitestone, and then takes her and Percy through the tree again so they all stand in Vassleheim. They go to the Shortfoot house, and Vex tells her family about Vesper standing in the woods in a black shirt, black pants, and a blue jacket. She cries into her arms about how her baby won’t stay out of the woods, about how she knows that her girl, her darling sprite, is going to leave just like Vax. That night is spent drinking, as Vox Machina comes up with more and more elaborate plans for rescuing Vesper from increasingly unlikely states of danger. It is Keyleth at the end of the night who sobers them, who says, “Are you going to go with her if she leaves? She's just like Vax; you know that eventually she is going to leave.” Vex looks at Percy, who looks at her, and both of them know the truth even if they can’t say it. If Vesper leaves they will not go with her. They’re tied to Whitestone, to their children, they can’t go haring off with their daughter, no matter how much they want to. What makes it all worse is that all the others are tied in a similar way: Scanlan, Grog, and Pike to Pux—to Sarenrae and Ioun, Keyleth to the village of Zephrah. If Vesper leaves, there is no one bigger and badder that Vex and Percy can send with her. If Vesper leaves she is on her own.)

The rest of Vesper’s teenage years passed like a dream, wandering the Parchwood with Vex, and spending her evenings laughing with Percy about clocks, hearing about Wode’s tomatoes and Wade’s sword work, and listening to Whitney and Jules bicker about the most moving way to play Kaylie’s training sonatas on the violin, and what notes best fit the Denault Theory of musical-arcana. 

Vex shows Vesper the gate very early on the job. It’s a single doorframe made of birch wood. The white bark has alternating sigils of arcane conjuration, travel, and twisting druidic glyphs carved into it. They're all inked in with something that glows, gently shifting from purple to blue to green. Branching roots spill out from the base of the frame as though the door is growing from the ground and is a living thing. In between those roots small flowers, moss, and toadstools grow, as though life itself cannot help but cluster near this place. The whole glade with filtered sunlight and chirping birds that seem just a touch more alive than in other parts of the Parchwood, which is difficult to believe considering how vivacious the Parchwood is. When Vesper looks through the door she can only see the Parchwood growing on the other side, but the air in the door shimmers like the surface of a soap bubble. It looks like there’s a tensile surface in the air that could pop at a moments notice. When she sees it, something in Vesper’s mind hums. It’s like the gate itself is giving off a frequency that only Vesper can hear. This gate in this glade is not what Vesper needs to bring Uncle Vax back, not where she needs to walk, but it is an example, a prototype, and she knows how to build. She is Percy’s daughter too. Just like the Parchwood this gate is calling to her. There is something important about this door. 

As she turns fifteen and then sixteen and then seventeen Vesper walks the Parchwood with Vex. Wode and Wade are apprenticed themselves, Wode leaving for days at a time about once a month to the Air Ashari to learn from Aunt Keyleth. He always manages to time his returns for precisely when Wade looks as miserable as he can be while still managing to function. Wade fights with Jarett, and sometimes their father will grasp him by the arm and show him a trick or two about moving faster and attacking more than once in the space of a breath. For Vesper it is a time of feeling the fabric of existence shift under her feet. She uses the Bow of the Sky Sentinel while her mother wields Fenthras. Together they confront the things that come through the gate that should not. She sees Artagan only once as she looks over her mother’s shoulder. He puts his finger up to his lips, winks, and then vanishes with a grin. Vesper doesn’t mention it to Vex. 

Vesper feels the fabric of the world hum under her feet. She thinks it started because the Parchwood is a place of magic. The forest is saturated with magical creatures and gateways and the eyes of the gods. Everything about it is touched with magic in some way, and, as she protects it, so to is Vesper. 

When she sees Vex move through the forest Vesper can’t help but think that Vex doesn’t grasp that saturation in its entirety. There’s something about Vex that stands separate from the Parchwood. She was not raised in Whitestone, and she doesn’t always look at things and see them as part of the environment of the city. When Vesper goes to the town square, children run by her. Once one of them locks eyes with her, and Vesper sees them glow yellow. It is not a surprise. Everything here is touched by magic. Sometimes shouts echo in the alleys as the shadows draw tight over corners and walls, seeming to create doors of the space where bricks should exist. To Vex all of this rushes by. Whitestone is a beautiful city to Vesper's mother but she isn’t in touch with the it in the same way that Vesper is. When Vesper walks through Whitestone the earth vibrates under her step, and sometimes Vesper finds her self in-between moments sliding from plane to plane. Vesper feels the buzzing of the world and knows in her heart that all the planes that surround the prime material are just a touch closer to this strange city. 

When Vesper is seventeen Vex let’s her take over the day to day patrols on her own. It is clear that Vesper is meant for this, she has fought fey, and strange natural creatures that walk the wood. Vesper is capable of keeping things under control with the help of the rest of the hunt, though individually she is nowhere near Vex’s level, Vex assures her daughter that she will still be there to take care of the bigger threats that Pelor sends word about. Vex grins at her daughter across the dinner table, “Honestly I was always supposed to delegate but frankly I like the day to day patrols, and being in the woods. Still, making Whitestone the tits was always one of my long term career goals, so I suppose now I have more time to focus on that.” 

Because Vex has taken a step back, she is not there when Vesper finds the body. The figure is lying face down in the snow with inky hair flaring across shoulders. It is dressed in a thick red robe embroidered with threads of gold, blues, and greens creating flowers and birds that twine with strange glyphs of magic to spill across the fabric, the item is intensely magical. Vesper runs forward to roll the person over. It’s a female elf, a girl, not too much older than Vesper, and she is nearly dead. She is bleeding heavily from the nose, and the skin curling around her right eye is burned badly. Closing her eyes like her mother taught her, Vesper focuses of the beat of nature around them, on the vibrations of the Parchwood and draws out some of that living energy, forcing it into the figure before her. 

The girl’s almond shaped eyes open. Her eyelashes cling to each other, slightly sticky with blood. Her eyes are such a dark brown that they’re almost indistinguishable from her pupils. Vesper looks down at her and their eyes lock. Someone has hurt this girl badly, and she is still on the verge of death; she makes Vesper feel something that she hasn’t since she watched her mother ride out into the Parchwood a hero, since she heard her father talk about the Astral sea, since she heard a drunken group of friends talk about a half-elf named Vax. Looking at this elf stirring in her arms makes Vesper feel like a hero, it feels like a decision.

Vesper carries her back to the keep. The girl lets her. They only thing she says as they walk is at the very beginning as Vesper lifts her. 

“Please don’t take me back there, please, I can’t go back there, I can’t.” Vesper feels a lump in throat as she hooks her arm under the girl’s legs and lifts, “I won’t, you won’t have to go back there, I promise. Don’t worry I’m taking you to my house. My parents will know what to do. You’ll be safe, no one is going to hurt you there.”

The girls eyes flutter and close after hearing this, but her hand grabs onto the collar around Vesper’s neck. The pads of her fingers move against Vesper’s skin near her throat leaving small smudges of red. It's not an attack or a push. It feels like just as much of a plea as the girl's earlier words. Vespers stomach twists and she picks up her pace towards the mansion. 

The guards send word ahead the moment they see Vesper carrying a person, and by the time Vesper arrives at the mansion, Vex and Percy are waiting for her. Though both her mother and father offer to take the girl from Vesper, she doesn’t let them. This feels like something that she alone should do. Vesper gets the girl settled in a guest bed, and Vex provides her own healing efforts. Her magic is much more powerful than Vesper’s, her understanding of the land and the energy that runs through it still glorious to witness. The burns and cuts that decorate the girl have mostly closed in this moment, but she still lies sleeping in the bed. Vex turns to Vesper, “She’s exhausted dear; we’ll post a guard here, and when she wakes up we’ll figure out what she was doing in the Parchwood, especially looking like that.”

Vesper nods. She has questions, of that there’s no doubt, but she also has patience, and for this strange elf with black eyes and blood smeared hands she thinks that she might be willing to wait forever. 

(Percy takes note of the way that his daughter looks at this girl. He has never seen Vesper look at anything this way. She looks captivated, as though there is nothing else that she wants to do but gaze at this dark haired elf. Percival knows the feeling. His daughter is more like him than she thinks.)

(Vex thinks that this is the moment that she has seen coming since her daughter snuck off into the woods, and that if this bloodied little elven twit gets her daughter killed, Vex is going to hunt her down and take her head as a prize.)

In the end their family ends up scattered in the large dining hall. While mansions tended to favor drawing rooms as public spaces, her parents had always preferred that everyone gather in the large room with solid oak tables and chairs where food and drink were provided. Her parents never quite lost the voracious and intense enjoyment of food that adventurers tended to have. In this moment it seems as though everyone has found the dining room. It is oddly quiet for one of these gatherings. Wode and Wade are sitting next to each other, and Wode has an arm around Wade, an odd moment of physical connection for the two of them. In contrast Whitney and Jules are facing each other at the end of the table. Though they are not touching, there is a book set in-between the two of them that they both appear to be reading at the same time. The girl sleeps through the night, which everyone realizes when the clock at the head of the room chimes out that it is twelve. Slowly they go to bed in sets of twos, the boys, then the girls, and finally Percy and Vex hand in hand. 

Vesper sits long after they’re gone. She doesn’t know quite why she is feeling the way she is. It isn’t only the call of adventure, though that is a major part of it. For so long the feeling deep in her gut of being pulled forward, of learning what the world had in store for her and then pursuing it, was enough to fulfill all of her desires. Vesper has watched her parents touch and laugh and dance, she has seen Wode court pretty girls with ribbons in their hair in town and seen Wade eye the muscular forms of his instructors while letting his hands linger in those of the common boys that he plays with in the streets. She has listened to Whitney wax poetic about the dreamy eyes of Allura while Jules looks on with a smile. The two of them are a little young but they still feel the impulse to have crushes, to admire. Vesper has never been drawn to it. Vesper has always played the role of watcher. She never had close friends in town she never felt a need to touch or to feel. Her eyes were never able to lock on to anything other than the Parchwood. Her soul was called to silver seas by something bigger and more powerful than she could ever imagine, so the idea of having someone else who could understand was hard to grasp. 

But then this girl. This girl who’s pain seems important, who looked at Vesper and begged for safety. Something about her makes the inside of Vesper’s chest warm. This girl is both a next step in her quest toward the Astral Sea, and someone who has caught Vesper’s eye. It takes a while of thinking that night to even understand that, and when the girl wakes up in the morning Vesper has gotten only a few hours of sleep.

When the reconvene in the dining hall, the girl joins them. She is still wearing the enchanted robe, but she has clearly washed up. Only silvery lines give any evidence that there was ever anything wrong. Other than the robe, the girl is dressed in the clean linens that had been left in the room for her. By the time that Vesper manages to get dressed and make her way to breakfast, the girl is already eating with the voraciousness of someone who has not had enough to eat in a long time. Vesper notes that the children are not in the hall with them, and that her father and mother are dressed in their full magical garb. Her father cloaked and her mother wearing the white armor that always makes Vesper think of Pelor and of Heroes riding to war on Bears. 

Upon seeing her Vex says in a firm voice, “Now that we are all present, perhaps we can begin learning a bit about our new guest.” 

The girl looks up from her breakfast, with bits of egg and meat leaking from the sides of her mouth. Her eyes meet Vesper’s, and Vesper can’t help but think that it is the cutest thing that she has ever seen. It takes the girl a couple of seconds to swallow, and then she pats her mouth with her napkin. “Sorry yeah, I guess I have some questions to answer. My name is Theo’dahalia but most people call me Theo. I think I fell out of your gate by accident.”

Vex’s eyebrows go up, “By accident.”

“Yeah I’m from the Deep Unseelie Courts of the Feywild, I was raised in one of their cities, and everyone knows about Artegan’s gate. I got captured by the Goblin King but my magic helped me escape to the gate and I think I sort of fell through.”

Vesper looks at Theo. “Let me get this straight, you have magic that just does things for you, and when you got captured by the Goblin King in the Deep Courts of Farie for some unspecified reason it transported you to the Parchwood? I have that right?” 

Theo’s mouth ticked up at the corner. “Yeah. I know it sounds unbelievable but yeah, you have it right. It’s because of this family heirloom. When I was a kid my mom had a sword in the corner of the sitting room. She called it the Astral Sword, said it was made from the molten silver of the Astral sea and given its shape by the Raven Queen herself to be a gift along with a set of armor for her Champion long ago. It was said that when the time was right the sword would give the Champion a way home to his Lady, who he had loved when he was a mortal. However in the night a thief stole the sword making the champion feel that he failed his goddess and lost his love. So he gave her remaining gift to his brother who would wield it in his Lady’s name, and instead spent the rest of his life pursuing recovery of the sword. The Raven Queen was so overcome with his loss that she cried a single black tear, that became a gemstone in which anyone could slumber free of harm. 

“The descendants of the original champion, my mom’s family, found the sword or something, and we’ve had it ever since. Whatever it was supposed to do, we can’t figure it out. The problem was that when I was a kid, I stole it and went to play in the woods, then I fell through a gate in a tree, and ended up in a Farie city with a sword and no way home. Luckily there was a shopkeeper who took me in and taught me magic, but it doesn’t always work quite right for me. It’s a little bit wild. I think it’s because I’m not a Fey and have spent so much time around the magic of the Feywild. Anyway, a goblin who was buying something from the shop saw the sword, and decided to steal it and me alongside. The Goblin King has it now. He was hurting me because he knew it was magic but he couldn’t figure out how to use it…” Her voice trailed off.

At the thought of the Goblin King, Theo’s eyes fixed on middle distance, as though she was lost in thought. It gave Vesper a moment to see the expressions of her parents. Her mother’s face looked like stone, her lips were flattened. Her father’s eyes were narrowed and his gaze hadn’t moved once from Theo’s face. Her parents would not help this girl. In their minds they had given enough to the Raven queen, they had given enough to the world. While they might volunteer for the world, Vesper knew her parents well enough to understand that they would never again serve the will of the Raven Queen if they could help it. It was then that Vesper knew what to do.

(The Raven Queen, why was it always the Raven Queen. That fucking bitch. This little elf can just get lost, there was no need for any more Raven’s champions in this house. Besides Vesper would never…)

“If you wish, I will go with you to retrieve the sword and slay this foul King that hurt you.” Theo’s eyes, black and shining, snapped up to meet Vesper’s. (Fuck.) The connection between them almost sizzled with intensity. This was the next step, and the sound of a sharp inhale from her mother to the side meant that everyone in the room could hear just how deadly serious that Vesper was when saying those words. Something not unlike hope came over Theo’s face as she looked up at Vesper. 

“Yes, yes. Thank you. That is what I want. What is your name?” Theo had started to smile.

“My name is Vesper.” She responded, and continued for it felt important, “I carried you here from the woods.” 

Theo nodded, and then stood extending her hand across the table. “Thank Vesper, both for carrying me then and helping me now. It would be an honor to have your aid.” Vesper took her hand and shook once, firmly, before turning to her parents.

They both looked ill. “Mother, Father, this is something I have to do; this is something I want to do. I know you fear for me, but please don’t make this harder than it has to be. I want to go and make you proud, and I promise I will return home again, perhaps with even better things than you expected.” Her mother slumped in her chair with her face in her hands. Her father stood looking at her. 

“We would never stop you from doing what you want to do. I do want you to know that it is breaking my heart to let you walk into a world that is so dangerous, but I will do it anyhow. If you are going, take this.” And from his hands, her father removed his black leather gloves with carved arcane glyphs twining around the palm and up the pads of each finger, “These are the gloves of missile snaring. I hope they serve you as well as they served me. I would give you Cabal’s Ruin, but Vestiges don’t like changing hands without being won, and I fear it wouldn’t serve you as well as you need.” After Vesper tugged on the gloves, her father pulled her into a tight embrace. “You will return to me, or I will go to that court and rain down fire on them until my world is set right.” His voice in that moment was low and rough, and Vesper knew that her father, being every inch the Hero her mother was, meant every word.

After he let her go, her mother stood looking at Vesper. “You’re not ready for this, but then again no one ever is. You will come back, or me, your father, and all of your aunts and uncles will be very cross and have to burn that entire plane to the ground. It will be ugly and unpleasant for all involved.” Vex’s eyes were glittering with tears.

“I know you all will mama.” 

“Darling Sprite, if we didn’t have duties here, we would go with you and you would be unable to stop us. Your aunts, uncles, everyone would follow you and her.” She shifted wiping her eyes. “Ah now I know how Pike felt all those years ago. This is so much worse than being the one going off. Here, take my bracers; they will make sure your aim is true. You already have the Bow of the Sky Sentinel and the Blazing Bowstring. With these gifts nothing will stand in your way.” After Vesper took them, her mother pressed a kiss to the top of her head. 

Vesper turned toward Theo, “If you give me a minute to get my stuff from my room and say goodbye to my siblings we can go.” Theo grinned at her. “Take all the time you need Guardian of mine. The Astral Sword isn’t going anywhere. ”

In the end it was so very easy to leave. She hugged Wode and Wade tight to her and pretended she didn’t notice the way Wode’s fingers clenched in her hair and the way Wade sniffed bright eyed as she let go. She kissed Whitney and Jules on the cheeks and ignored the fury and confusion underneath Whitney’s voice as she said, “You’re leaving!” She let her eyes drift so as not to see the way that Jules clenched her jaw and didn’t say anything at all. There were more important things to worry about. There were quests to go on, planes to explore, uncles to retrieve, and beautiful elves with disobedient magic to woo. Even so, a little part of Vesper couldn’t help but be jealous of Vex in that moment. When Vex had left for adventure she had her brother at her side. Vex never had to leave anyone behind; there was never any question that her family would go with her. 

It was snowing as she stepped hand in hand with Theo through the door. Her family stood behind her. For all that they were mad and would miss her, her brothers and sisters stood at her back with her parents at their side as Vesper left. It hurt like carving out pieces of her heart. It hurt like nothing else. Even so, as Vesper took those steps it felt like breathing for the very first time. With her family behind her and the Astral Sea on her mind, Vesper turned, grabbed Theo's hand and walked towards adventure.


End file.
